Chapter 49
CHAPTER 49
I HUGGED TIA then covered her eyes as Jed hobbled into the kitchen in his boxer shorts and cast, scratching his unmentionables.
“For Pete’s sake, put some proper clothes on!” I snapped at him. “Tia doesn’t want to see you half-naked.”
“Actually, the bit I saw looked quite good,” Tia mumbled, her face still squashed against my hand.
“Jed—clothes!”
He ambled out of the kitchen and Mack stared after him. “Ah, Jared Harker, the CIA’s finest.”
I turned to Luke with a groan. “My house isn’t normally like this, I swear.”
“What happened?” Mack asked. “Did your harem escape from the basement again?”
Not helping.
“Mack, be serious. This isn’t setting a good example for Tia. Honestly, I wasn’t even here last night. I left them to it and stayed at Nick’s. Although to be fair, his place looks worse than this, and he didn’t even have a party.”
Luke didn’t look as though he believed me, but when he laughed at Nate’s attempts to work the blender, I breathed a sigh of relief he wasn’t cross.
“Perhaps we should go to the office instead?” Mack suggested.
“Good idea. Give me fifteen minutes to shower and change, and I’ll come with you.”
I took twelve, even after I stopped to tell Bradley he’d better have the house cleared by the evening or I’d confiscate his company Lamborghini. I also paused to check the body lying across the upstairs landing was still breathing.
“Tia, do you want to ride with me or Luke?” I asked.
“You. Do you have a sports car? I bet you’ve got a sports car.”
We took the Viper, and on the way, she told me what happened after our interrupted night at Black’s. I already knew most of it. It seemed no one had filled her in on my Syrian escapade, and I wasn’t about to either.
I could tell she had mixed feelings over Luke being with Mack, and a lot of that stemmed from worrying how I felt about it. I tried to convince her I was happy about the situation, even though the pretence took an effort. My issues were my own, and I didn’t want to make things uncomfortable for the two lovebirds. And honestly, I hoped it lasted. If it didn’t, the fallout would be huge.
At Blackwood Headquarters, I parked in my reserved spot next to the front door. Nick’s space beside it was empty. I hadn’t seen him this morning, and I dreaded to think where he’d turn up.
Tia eyed up the Director sign in front of my car. “So you’re the boss around here, huh?”
“One of them. Nick and Nate are also bossy.”
“Nate?”
“The smelly guy in my kitchen who was struggling to turn the blender on.”
“Really?”
I couldn’t blame her for looking doubtful. If my first meeting with Nate had been this morning, I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of running a multi-billion dollar company either.
“Yes, really. He comes across better after a shower.”
Mack and I showed Luke and Tia around, from the shooting range to the forensics lab to the tech department. Tia seemed peculiarly fascinated with the surveillance room.
“It’s awesome. You can watch people and they don’t even know. It’s like a real-life version of Big Brother .”
“It’s also interminably dull.”
“No way! Oh, wow, that guy just reversed into a fire hydrant.”
In the end, we left her there with Jorge, the shift supervisor, determined to help out. Give her a day or two, and she’d soon realise monitoring CCTV footage was the most boring thing ever.
Luke and Mack followed me upstairs, where I was still borrowing Nick’s office. We paused in the kitchen to grab coffee on the way.
“I’d offer you a biscuit, but we only have these weird crackers with seeds in them.”
“Toby again?” Mack asked.
“The one and only. So, what are you doing here?”
Luke settled back on the sofa. “I’ve decided to open an office in Richmond.”
“You mentioned a while back that you might. I’m glad things are progressing. How long are you staying for?”
“A couple of weeks. Mack offered to introduce me to some people.”
“And Tia?”
“Just a few days. She’s got mock exams next Wednesday.”
“It’s nice to see her.”
“She asked if she could stay with you, but I didn’t want to say yes without asking first.”
“Sure she can. I promise most of the guys will be gone by this evening.”
“Most of them? How many are you planning to keep around?”
“Don’t worry; my house isn’t some debauched playground. Bradley might stay, plus Jed. He’s on sick leave, and he’s developed an addiction to my games room. I’ll make sure he’s got clothes on at all times.”
“Just the two of them?”
“Just two.”
“In that case, I’ll tell her she can stay.”
“What are your plans for today? Do I need to keep an eye on her?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. I’ve got an appointment with a realtor at three, then Mack’s going to show me around town.”
“If you need an office, I’ve probably got a vacant one.”
“You own real estate?”
“Don’t look so surprised. Just because I was elbow-deep in horse poop when you met me doesn’t mean I don’t know how to invest.”
“Oh.” He glanced at Mack, who nodded. “In that case, what have you got?”
I’d met with my property agent not long ago, and my portfolio was doing nicely, thank you very much.
“How about a vacant floor in a building on Forest Avenue? You can have it free for six months if you want.”
Generous? Not really. I still felt like I owed him for providing me with room and board and other forms of, ahem, entertainment back in England, and besides, if he stayed, I’d make a profit on the rent in the future.
“In that case, I’ll put it at the top of my list.”
“I’ll get someone to take you over there, and in the meantime, I’m borrowing Mack for lunch. I’ve barely seen her for weeks.”
Mack and I went out to Claude’s. The restaurant was French, but because I was a good customer, they allowed me a bit of leeway with my menu choices. I took a secret delight in seeing how far I could push it.
After a quick perusal of the specials’ board, Mack ordered first. “I’ll have the Sole Meunière, s’il vous plait .”
The waiter nodded.
I grinned at him. “I’ll have a Kobe beef burger and fries, extra tomato, no pickle, and could you do me a side order of crispy seaweed?”
He gulped and gave me a sickly smile. “ Mais oui, madame .”
Mack shook her head as he scurried off. “Why do you always do that?”
“Claude bet me a few months ago that he could serve up anything I ordered, and I like to challenge him.”
“Have you beaten him yet?”
Much to my annoyance, no. “I had ostrich in satay sauce last week. It was disgusting.”
That was met with a peal of laughter. “Serves you right.”
I was pleased to see Mack upbeat. After the idiot before last, she’d moped for weeks, so it seemed as if Luke was doing her some good. I said as much to her, and when she blushed, I knew I was right.
“I really like him,” she confessed.
“You’re good together. Two techie-freaks. I bet when you mention logic gates and ‘if’ statements he actually knows what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, and he doesn’t think Java’s a type of coffee.”
“It is a type of coffee.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“Nothing’s more important than a good, smooth espresso.”
Nothing more than having the old Mack back, anyway. The last guy had come dangerously close to a body bag after what he put her through, and I was as confident as I could be that Luke wouldn’t do the same. Just to be on the safe side, I’d done a full background check when I got back to the States. Apart from a couple of speeding tickets, a caution for urinating against the wall of the local cinema when he was seventeen, and a tendency to answer back to his geography teacher, his history came back clear.
We finished dinner with dessert—pineapple upside-down cake for me and orange sorbet for Mack.
“I thought you always had chocolate something-or-other?” I said.
“Luke’s been buying me so many boxes of the stuff I’m going to have to ask him to slow down.”
Yes, they worked well together. Mack’s eyes lit up every time she talked about him, and while she may not have admitted it, even to herself, I knew she’d fallen in love.
At least somebody was happy.